Anavex Selects Forenap Pharma For Clinical Trials Of Anavex 2-73

Anavex Life Sciences has selected Forenap Pharma as the contract research organization (CRO) for phase I clinical trials of Anavex 2-73, the company’s lead Alzheimer’s drug candidate.

Herve de Kergrohen, CEO of Anavex, said: “The selection of a world-class CRO is an important milestone in our product development process and it underscores our commitment to advance Anavex 2-73 through Phase I clinical trials. We are moving forward into these trials based on the positive results of our pre-clinical testing, which demonstrated the compound’s significant disease-modifying potential and its powerful anti-amnesic and neuroprotective properties.”

Forenap Pharma will perform study setup, protocol review, site monitoring, and project management for the trials. All work will be performed under individual work orders that fall under a master services agreement executed by Forenap and Anavex including pre-clinical, pharmaceutical and clinical development of Anavex 2-73.

Remy Luthringer, CEO of Forenap Pharma, said: “We are pleased to be partnering with Anavex for clinical trials of its Alzheimer’s disease lead drug candidate. There is a critical need for drugs that can modify the course of devastating CNS disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. We look forward to running a high-quality and cost-effective program as Anavex works to confirm its pre-clinical findings in a clinical setting.”

Anavex 2-73, a sigma-1 receptor agonist, has been shown in pre-clinical testing to be neuroprotective and anti-amnesic. It is postulated that Anavex 2-73 impacts mitochondrial dysfunction, which is thought by many researchers to be one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, and may be mitochondrial protective.